FEATURES / CONTAINS

Interior Set

It's 1979 and Lizette Marquez is about to marry a nice Jewish boy in a ceremony at Woodland Hills Country Club that is costing thousands of dollars. While she and her extended three-generational family enjoy the fruits of material success in their adopted country, they remain haunted by memories of Cuba. They experience the cultural divide faced by Cuban Americans who feel they are 3000 miles from their real lives. In their idle fantasies, Cuba might still be reclaimed, so they cling to memories of a society displaced by the revolution.

"A rich play with an undertow of sorrow and rushes of anger and humor . . . Its young author has a strong comic voice and a passion to examine the meaning of people history." - New York Times

Characters

CASTING

Eduardo Machado was born in Cuba and came to the United States when he was eight. He grew up in Los Angeles. He is the author of over forty plays. They include The Floating Island Plays, Once Removed, Stevie Wants To Play The Blues, A Burning Beach, Havana Is Waiting, and The Cook. They have been produced at many major regional theaters, as well as in Europe and Off-Broadway, including among ... view full profile

Eduardo Machado’s play, Broken Eggs, shows the struggles and issues of a Cuban-American family on their daughter’s wedding day. The play was written in English, although it seems that the characters, at least some of them, are speaking in Spanish throughout the play. Sonia Marquez Hernandez, the central character and mother figure of the family, says more than once that she does not speak English very well, while all of her dialogue is written in grammatically perfect English. Machado reveals a complex experience with language that shows how it can be an expression of cultural identity or at least, the struggle to find one’s cultural identity.

This linguistic construction seems to emphasize the character’s frustration with their seemingly forced immigration from communist Cuba to the supposedly democratic United States. Cuba is greatly idealized and serves as an idealized dreamland very much in opposition to their new life in the U.S. Political comments are common within the family’s banter as well as references to the family’s conservative values regarding sexuality, marriage, and relationships between men and women. Just as the family’s language is overridden by American culture, it seems their values are also infiltrated and challenged. The title is referred to as the sexually curious brother of the family, Oscar, quotes “Lenin or some commie” explaining how their family is just some of the “broken eggs” that were sacrificed in the attempt to make the “omelet” of the idyllic communist Cuba. This politically charged play explores the struggles Hispanic American experience as their language, political beliefs, and social norms are challenged.